Before I start, I would just like to say that the “trace (on!)” part in the title is referring to a scene in the drama CD that comes with this set. Now that that’s out of the way we can begin!

This is only the first copy of the 2nd BD boxset of Fate/ZERO I’ve got in so far as my 2nd copy from Ufotable’s web shop is still on its way. I didn’t buy two copies for the first boxset though as the only store exclusives I was interested in getting was Animate’s. This time, after checking out the updated list on Fate/ZERO’s official page for the BD listing, I noticed that Ufotable’s web shop was selling the 2nd BD boxset with their own special exclusive deluxe carry case and sign board with messages and artworks from the production staff. That was enough to get me to purchase a 2nd copy, but enough about that, it’s time to focus on Animate’s release in this post.

Pictures can be enlarged by right-clicking “View Image”

After the surprise from last time on how huge the 1st boxset was packed, I was expecting about the same for the 2nd but it seemed the box was much smaller compared to the last one, which is surprising in itself since this release from Animate seems to have a few more store exclusives than the 1st boxset (5 Animate store exclusives + 1 manufacturer’s early pre-order bonus) and they all fitted in one box whereas the previous one had two big boxes folded together.

Like the 1st one, box 2 contains 5 BD discs and two audio CDs. Discs 1-4 of the BD contains the 2nd half of Fate/ZERO while the 5th disc is a “remix” disc that contains the recap episodes. The two audio CDs are volume 2 of the series music soundtrack and a new drama CD. I’ve listened to the drama CD before making this post and will give a quick short summary of it before moving onto Animate’s store exclusive bonuses.

The story takes place sometime after the battle where Shirou wakes up in the middle of the night because he can’t sleep and keeps having nightmares of the fire and destruction that resulted from the battle for the holy grail. He confides in Kiritsugu, who gives him some medicine as Shirou is still recovering from the aftermath. They have a conversation where Kiritsugu reveals that he is a magus and Shirou tells him that he wants to be taught some magic and become strong like him in battle so that he can’t be defeated. Kiritsugu tells him he’ll teach him sometime later and gets him to go back to sleep.

Next morning, he is practicing kendo with Taiga. After finishing, they have a discussion about it where Taiga rambles on and on about the sport which gives Kiritsugu an idea on how to help Shirou. He invites her over to have dinner with him which Shirou is making. After Taiga goes home (not before taking a bath at their house however-or mansion as she likes to call it), Kiritsugu begins to teach Shirou just the basics and foundations of how to use magic within his body (as inspired from his conversation with Taiga earlier in the day). He tells Shirou to think of an incantation that he can use that will help him trace an image of an object he wants to use in battle (thus the reference in the title of this blog’s post) but assures him there isn’t any rush to think of one right away at this time. The audio drama ends with Shirou saying “trace…” while taking in the things Kiritsugu has taught him. That’s pretty much the basic gist of this story. There’s probably a lot more details that I’ve missed or skipped over but I’m sure many Type-Moon fans might already know about Shirou’s power from the Fate game so this story probably won’t mean much to them or contain any new information.

Now onto Animate’s store exclusives. First up is the B2-size wallscroll

Originally, I think the wallscroll was meant to have an artwork of Saber and Rider, but I might’ve mistaken the katakana name of Waver for Saber when I read the product listing and it was meant to be Waver all this time. The one word that image seems to scream out to me is “fantasy” for some reason, most probably because of the dark horse and electricity around the two characters.

Next is Animate’s early pre-order bonus A3 clear poster using the placeholder image when the 2nd BD boxset’s release date was announced.

Then we have the artbox that used to hold both BD box 1 and 2 of the series. Initially, I was a bit skeptical on how well it would look when I saw the flat layout design for the artbox on Animate’s listing but seeing it in person has put away that doubt. The silver glossy look on the box makes it look pretty classy in my opinion. On one side you have the character sketches for all seven masters.

While the other side contains the servants.

Animate also included a special online wallpaper that can be downloaded in three size dimensions. Just like the special online wallpaper that was given out to those who bought the Japanese Durarara!! BD boxset, a paper slip containing the url link and password to access it was provided. It is available for download until the 19th of October, 2012 but fear not readers, you will be able to download them on my blog at the end of this post!

I took screencaps of the login and download pages just for the sake of it.

The final bonus from Animate is a special carry bag. This one is actually bigger than the black carry bag that was included with the 1st boxset, so I was able to fit in all the items into it including the manufacturer’s early pre-order bonus 7 poster set.

And speaking of the manufacturer’s early pre-order bonus, here is the photo of the posters from the set. Those who pre-ordered the boxset by July 10th, 2012 from any of the big four anime retailers (Sofmap, Gamers, Animate & Toranoana) or from Ufotable’s web shop would receive it.

It looks slightly better than the 14 poster-set manufacturer’s early pre-order bonus for the 1st boxset as more use of the colours are printed over the artworks whereas the 1st set seemed to just have the colours splashed onto it randomly. The text also isn’t a big distraction as it was on the previous set. The most notable difference however, would be the increase in size dimensions. Check below for a comparison. The poster set for box 2 is on the left while the one for the 1st is on the right.

As I did with the blog post for the 1st boxset, I also took a few sample pictures of the animation material booklet.

As promised, here are the downloads to Animate’s special Fate/ZERO wallpaper. I guess some probably scrolled down all the way to end of this post just for this lol.

Next anime BD post will obviously be my 2nd copy of this boxset from Ufotable’s web shop. It won’t be detailed as this one of course as I’ve covered just about all I wanted and will probably have more photos than text.

Working and saving up money. Well actually I got Animate’s copy for around $250AUD in total (that includes EMS shipping and Tenso fees) thanks to saving up to 20,000 points with my account over there which was used to reduce the RRP of 35,700 yen down to just 15,700 yen. In the end I got it much cheaper than buying it either from Amazon Japan with their 27% discount or Rightstuf and still got all the store exclusive bonuses :D.